


i know we've come so far (but baby, we've got so far to go)

by lincyclopedia



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Alternate Universe - Writing & Publishing, M/M, POV First Person, POV Simon Snow, POV Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Present Tense, References to Shakespeare, Watford First Year
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24381739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lincyclopedia/pseuds/lincyclopedia
Summary: A collection of ficlets answering prompts from the carryonsparks prompt challenge on Tumblr. So far featuring: Slow, Watch, Plot, and Dedication.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	1. Slow

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is going to be a disjointed multichapter where each chapter responds to a prompt from [carryonsparks](https://carryonsparks.tumblr.com/), a prompt challenge being run on Tumblr by [f-ing-ruthless-baz](). There’s a new prompt each week. I won’t promise to write every week, but I’m planning on adding to this at least occasionally. I’m not anticipating the chapters will have anything to do with one another or will build on each other in any way, and I’m planning on shooting for 500-ish words per chapter. 
> 
> The fic title is from the musical _Hairspray._

I’ve given my third wrong answer of the day when I hear a quiet chant start up from a couple rows behind me: “Slow, slow Simon Snow! Don’t ask him; he doesn’t know!” It’s to the tune of “Rain, Rain, Go Away.” I turn around in my seat, even though I have the class seating chart memorised and, even if I didn’t, I’d know exactly who’s singing because I recognise their voices. Sure enough, Baz’s gray eyes are glittering and his pale lips are moving. To his right, Dev and Niall are singing too. I don’t think they’re loud enough for the Minotaur to hear them—Penny, Agatha, and I are sitting in the middle of the classroom, with Baz, Dev, and Niall two rows behind us in the absolute back. 

I turn to face Penny, widening my eyes in a plea. I only met her two months ago, but I’ve already come to count on her just about every time something bad happens. Penny scribbles something on her paper and hands it to me. It says, _Ignore them. Learning at your own pace is fine and they’re mostly just jealous because you’re the Chosen One._

 _They’re right, though,_ I write back. _I’m stupid. How am I ever going to save the World of Mages if I can’t even answer questions right in class?_

When Penny reads the note, she takes my hand and squeezes. Baz, Dev, and Niall quiet down for a while. They start back up again when I give yet another wrong answer in Miss Possibelf’s class, but Miss Possibelf hears them and gives them all detention. Penny smiles at me when that happens, and I feel a little better.

* * *

“Why do you keep doubting me?” Baz yells. I can’t remember how we started shouting at each other this time. It’s been happening a lot lately. I’ve been trying to tell Baz he’d be better off without me and he’s been trying to insist that he’s in love with me, which is clearly rubbish. He could have anyone. There’s no universe where I could be worth his time. 

“Because you hated me from the moment we met! Because I nearly caused the end of magic! Because you went to school with me and you know how stupid I am!” I shout back. 

I’m not done, but Baz is suddenly right in front of me, reaching toward me, not standing across the flat from me and gesticulating. He says, very quietly, “Simon, you’re not stupid.” 

“Slow, slow, Simon Snow,” I sing at him, matching his volume. “Don’t ask him; he doesn’t know.” 

Baz’s face crumples. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Simon, I was such a git, and I don’t know how to ask you to forgive me, but I need you to understand that I haven't thought of you that way in years. You’re brilliant on the battlefield. You always know what needs to be done, and you do it. No, you weren’t top of our class, but there’s more than one way to be intelligent. I swear to you that you impress me and that your brain does worthwhile things. Please, Simon, please believe me.” 

“Even if that were true,” I say, “I’d still never deserve you.” 

“If that’s true,” says Baz, “that’s only because you deserve someone who hasn’t hurt you in all the many, many ways I have.” 

I shake my head, but I don’t have more words right now.

Baz kisses my forehead lightly. “You deserve the world, Simon Snow.” 

I shake my head again, but I let Baz hold me.


	2. Watch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the Watford High School production of _Much Ado about Nothing_ , Baz plays Don John and Simon plays Dogberry. Baz is impressed with Simon's acting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This connects to the prompt of “watch” because Dogberry is a member of the Watch. That’s not clear in the fic and I should probably not assume you know it, so there you go. 2. This vision of Dogberry is very much influenced by the Royal Shakespeare Company’s performance of _Much Ado about Nothing_ that I saw in England in 2017.

Simon Snow is the perfect person to play Dogberry. 

When it was announced that Watford High School would be putting on _Much Ado about Nothing_ as the spring play, Dev and Niall immediately started bugging me to try out for Benedick. (The only reason they knew any of the characters’ names at all was because we read _Much Ado_ in English class last year—they don’t read Shakespeare for fun, the charlatans.) I rolled my eyes at them and auditioned for Don John—and, of course, I got the part. 

I may love to act, and I may love Shakespeare, but I have no interest in playing a romantic leading man (certainly not a straight one); I have a brooding reputation to uphold, and that means playing the villain. Besides, even though Don John is thoroughly evil, he has some great lines. My favorite is “I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man’s jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man’s leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend to no man’s business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humor.” I long for that kind of independence, honestly. 

But anyway. Simon Snow as Dogberry. I almost wondered if Ms. Possibelf would encourage him to audition for Benedick, since he has the looks for it—blue eyes and bronze curls and that ridiculous golden glow—but luckily Ms. Possibelf realized that Simon doesn’t have nearly the acting chops or memorization ability to play a leading role. Ever since the cast list went up, I’ve been eagerly waiting for Simon to have to yell, “O that I had been writ down an ass!” in front of everybody. 

Simon and I don’t have scenes together, so I don’t see him act until late in the rehearsal process, since we’ve been called on different days. But when I finally do see him as Dogberry, I’m stunned. Simon has a cane as a prop, and he’s limping around the stage, leaning on his cane, and delivering his lines with a tremble in his barking voice. This isn’t Dogberry as a clown, the way I’ve seen him played before; this is Dogberry the veteran with PTSD and maybe a traumatic brain injury. And like, of course I know from the opening scene that Benedick, Claudio, and Don Pedro are just back from a war, so it would make sense for there to be veterans around, but my God, it had never occurred to me to play Dogberry like this. 

His portrayal of Dogberry isn’t the last time Simon surprises me, either. At the cast party, he asks for my number.


	3. Plot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A spinoff of [BasicBathsheba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/pseuds/BasicBathsheba)'s ["Paperback Writer."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18839197/chapters/44708710) Baz reads Simon's latest manuscript and gives his initial thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next are based on [“Paperback Writer”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18839197/chapters/44708710) by [BasicBathsheba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/pseuds/BasicBathsheba). Simon is an author and Baz is his editor; _Slain_ is a previous book Simon wrote. At this point, he and Baz have been together for a while.

“This barely has a plot, Salisbury,” I say. It’s three in the morning and I’ve just finished reading _Absolute Nightmare_ , my boyfriend’s latest adult novel. He’s been _watching me read it_ , leaning over my shoulder to see whatever’s made me laugh or gasp or roll my eyes, and he’s seemed entirely too pleased with himself for the last several hours. “The characters are fantastic, but you can’t just hang out with great characters for a hundred thousand words and call it a book.” 

Simon, who’s literally been grinning since I started reading the manuscript—no, since he showed up this afternoon and found all our friends in my backyard waiting to celebrate him—looks down, delighted expression melting off of his face. This is the worst part of us being a couple, honestly: our entire _thing_ was insulting each other, for ages, and sometimes that still works for us, but other times it’s like this and he seems genuinely offended or worse, sad. “You don’t like it?” he asks. 

I sigh and try to figure out how to answer this without upsetting him further. “I like it for all the wrong reasons,” I say. “I love Silas Frost and Chaz Watford. I love them a lot, and I love seeing their friendship blossom into a romance. But you haven’t written a romance novel here, and that’s your problem. This book doesn’t know what genre it wants to be. In a romance, the main couple can’t be together in the third-to-last chapter. You have to spend that chapter, or maybe even the penultimate chapter, wondering if the couple will get together and find happiness. Silas and Chaz get together two-thirds of the way through the book, when we still have over thirty thousand words to go. That would work if the romance were a subplot, like if the main plot were about saving the world, but there isn’t really something bigger going on here. So we just get thirty thousand words of domestic life. I love it, but that’s not what sells.” 

“ . . . Oh,” says Simon quietly. “This needs even more edits than _Slain_ , doesn’t it?”

I shrug. I hate that I’ve picked up that mannerism from him, but it’s ingrained by now, and right this instant I think the gesture will probably soften what I’m saying. Which is good. “This is longer than Slain, and it’s another new genre for you. I mean, yes, _Slain_ was new for you because it was adult, and you hadn’t done anything queer before, or any erotica, but it was still fantasy, you know? You’re trying something different here. It makes sense you wouldn’t get it perfect on your first try.” 

“You get things perfect on the first try,” Simon mutters.

“Simon,” I say firmly. “I am not a writer. I can’t do what you do. Even with how much you borrow from real life, you still create something out of nothing, in a way. I can’t do that. I am an excellent editor, but I need something to mold. To sculpt. You give me clay and I make it into a vase, but don’t discount your role in making the clay.” 

He still looks sad. 

I kiss him on the forehead. “This is going to be the best queer romance of the year,” I tell him. “We just need to put the work in. But not right now. Right now, I’m going to take you to bed. Okay?”

“Okay,” he replies, and then he kisses me.


	4. Dedication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon dedicates his latest book to Baz. Based on ["Paperback Writer"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18839197/chapters/44708710) by [BasicBathsheba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/pseuds/BasicBathsheba).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the last one are based on ["Paperback Writer"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18839197/chapters/44708710) by [BasicBathsheba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/pseuds/BasicBathsheba). Simon is an author and Baz is his editor; _Absolute Nightmare_ is Simon’s latest book. At this point, he and Baz have been together for a while.

I’m surprised, when I open the document Simon’s sent me of the latest draft of _Absolute Nightmare_ —the last draft Simon’s going to touch, because from here it’s mostly proofreading and typesetting—to see that the first page isn’t the beginning of chapter one, or even a table of contents. (Not that Simon would write his own table of contents. We always do those toward the end of typesetting just in case the page numbers change when we add or delete something, and anyway this is an adult book, so it probably won’t have a table of contents. I’m just used to those from his Sir Scone stuff.) 

But instead of anything I was expecting, the first page I see is a dedication page. Simon’s never had one of those before—he wanted to dedicate his first Sir Scone book to Bunce, but I forbade him from dedicating his book to his agent, and, since he doesn’t have family, who did that leave? So he just hasn’t tried to dedicate a book to anyone since then. 

Well. Until now. 

_To B, with all my love_ , it says. 

I’m blinking back tears as I pull out my mobile and ring him. 

“Baz?” Simon says when he picks up, his voice soft and lovely and maybe a little nervous in my ear. “You don’t usually ring during work.” 

“The dedication,” I say, and then I’m not sure how to continue the sentence, so I don’t. 

“Oh,” Simon says. “You saw it.” 

“You absolute nightmare,” I say, my voice thick. “You wonderful, glorious man.” 

“You like it?” Simon asks. 

“Of course I bloody like it,” I reply. “It’s perfect. And so are you.”

“Are you _drunk_?” Simon demands. “You only get like this when you’re drunk.” 

“Or when you declare your undying love for me in front of the entire reading public.” 

“So you haven’t been drinking at work, just so we’re clear?”

“What? _No_ ,” I say. “I may hate Mage, but I do actually value my job and my mother’s company. I have not been drinking at work.” 

“So you actually just liked the dedication so much that you needed to ring me and let me know?”

“Don’t go getting an ego about it,” I mutter. 

“What, about the fact that you called me perfect?” I can hear him smiling. 

“Exactly,” I snap. Well, I _try_ to snap. It comes out at least halfway fond, somehow. 

“Too late,” says Simon. “The fittest, smartest, funniest man I know is in love with me and I intend to have an ego about it forever.” 

“Oh?” I say. “Should I meet this man? Sounds like maybe I should be jealous.” I’m teasing, but also I want to make him say it. 

“You ridiculous man,” he says. “You know I’m talking about you.”


End file.
